“As Conservatives, we are engaged in a battle against cultural Marxism...This is a perfectly reasonable statement. Braverman- an Indian origin lady of mixed Goan Christian & Hindu heritage, who has only very recently married a Jewish gentleman- is, for sound tactical reasons, linking Corbyn to antisemitism while expressing distaste for Marxism which has always taken a dim view of Jews- as witness this notorious passage from 'On the Jewish Question'-
"I'm very worried about this ongoing creep of cultural Marxism which has come from Jeremy Corbyn".
Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. [...] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews. [...] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.I need hardly say that the above is gaseous poison. Marx was a Lutheran, albeit of Jewish origin, who initially adopted 'Young Hegelian' jargon of a theological, rather than proto-scientific, stripe, and thus did not see that the essence of Judaism is 'mussar' - ethical thinking founded upon the notion that 'one's spiritual needs are the material needs of the suffering other'. This is a description of the Mother. God alone knows 'the ways of a man with a maid'- even if that man was our all-huggable and cuddlesome Daddy-
Jews, like Quakers, Zoroastrians, Jains etc. did well in trust-based trading networks because they acknowledged a reciprocal duty of care such that the 'winners' in economic exchanges used a portion of their gains for philanthropic and communal purposes & thus, albeit indirectly, compensated 'losers' because, in any case, progeny would intermarry. I suppose the Babylonian Talmud's stricture to educate orphans at public expense is what gave Jews the handicap, which could always turn into an advantage, of literacy and deductive reason.
Nobody in India- Suella's ancestral home- thought that Jains or Parsis or any other minority Religious sect was not sincere in its beliefs. One might say ' so-and-so is a blood sucking bania'- but a bania (businessman) might belong to one's own sect. There are Muslim 'bania' castes. What is unheard of is the suggestion that ethical Religion is created by the demands of a commercial society, though, obviously, the virtues it inculcates- thrift, honesty, diligence, sobriety, philanthropic munificence- have a reputational effect and militate for financial success.
Interestingly, a recent article states that Hindu businessmen prefer to hire young Muslims because they believe them to be more sober and honest. This is the other side of the coin of soi disant Islamic fanaticism. I suppose it also helps that Muslims can less easily steal your clients and set up on their own. Still, such young people find that the belief that Muslims are now more pious and less likely to touch alcohol than Hindus is giving them an edge in an otherwise more hostile world.
This brings me to the question, why of all the various religious minorities which have gotten ahead- whether they be Quakers, Mormons, Parsis or Jains or whatever- why have only the Jews been singled out for the vilest vituperation? Why has their Faith been equated with laissez faire Capitalism?
The answer has to do with the view that the Jews are Deicides- Judas sold the Lord for 40 pieces of silver. However, this view has not been taught by any Church longer than I've been alive. Thus, it is only through the Marxist route that it can continue to work its mischief.
Clearly the Board of Deputies of British Judaism thinks differently. Its spokesman says 'cultural Marxism' is related to Nazi '“Kulturbolschewismus” - and the charge that Jewish intellectuals were orchestrating the spread of Communism, as well as sexual permissiveness. Thus, an Indian origin lady married to a Jew, should have chosen her words more carefully.
This is nonsense. Suella is clearly of Indian origin. Like the vast majority of people the world over, she has no interest at all in what some stupid German hooligans said or thought eighty years ago. Every one knows the Nazis were ISIS type gangsters seeking wealth through conquest and slavery. Anyway, they had the shit kicked out of them a long time ago.
If Suella was blonde and blue eyed, maybe, some people might think her castigating 'cultural marxism' was an anti-semitic dog-whistle. But she isn't blonde. She looks entirely Indian. The Board of Deputies have made themselves look very foolish.
Marx tried to break with German stupidity by studying British Classical Economics. Marxism is an economic theory. Thanks to smart Soviet and American and Japanese and Italian and Indian economists, it had attained a highly sophisticated mathematical representation by the end of the Sixties. Unfortunately, parallel developments in the theory of computability, complexity, concurrency etc. showed that it was useless. Still, people like Anwar Shaikh can make it empirical by using Big Data and modelling economic processes in terms of 'turbulent flow'. However, this kind of stuff needs a high I.Q and, in any case, is the sort of thing people can figure out for themselves.
Cultural Marxism, however, was always intended for the very stupid. It's something you can rap about in-between bong hits and your day-job delivering pizzas.
There may have been a time when the Frankfurt School looked smart. It wasn't. It was a pile of racist shite- stuff like pretending Schoenberg was a good composer and Jazz was bad coz it was nigger music. It had zero impact on India or China or anywhere Marxism still had salience.
No doubt, desi Leftists of my generation started burbling about Walter Benjamin but this was only coz they were ill paid tenure craving hacks who were pretending that the Left hadn't shat the bed back home. Meanwhile, mofussil desis who had studied STEM subjects had gotten rich. Only their idiot daughters- for the sake of an Ivy League credential- audited courses on this type of shite.
Marcuse's Eros & Civilization had zero impact on the Global South. This is because if you could read it, you could also buy as much drugs and deviant sex as you liked. Polymorphous perversity was as cheap as chips in shit-hole countries, which is why hippies turned up there in such numbers.
Jews did not spread Communism to China or India or Africa. Nor were they associated with sexual permissiveness. On the contrary, they were respected for commercial probity and a commitment to higher education. 'Cultural Marxism' was, till recently, flourishing in India- Suella's ancestral home. But, for genuine Marxists, only Economic Marxism matters. Either the thing can grant working people a more secure and higher standard of living or it is worthless. Ethical Religion improves life-chances. Having lost touch with Economics, Cultural Marxism is mere mystagogy without catechesis which, out of the wanderings of Cain, constructs a wilderness Zion.
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